Dreamer
by MercuryKittenOldAccount
Summary: There is no such thing as a dream. Yes, it's another next generation Erik's kid piece but hopefully it will be a little different from the default. Will late on be rated M for sex and language, is planned to contain homosexuality and possibly gasp incest?
1. Black Corset

_Prologue – March, 1881 _

My eyes were closed at first, as I remained in a dark stupor that had passed as sleep for the past few years. I didn't need to sleep, really, but only relax. I hated not working, not occupying myself somehow, for when I was idle thoughts of her poisoned my mind. I often allowed my mind to drift off and leave me with nothing to think, nothing to feel, a temporary coma where I can pretend I don't exist for a time. It's better than a sleep filled with tormented dreams I inflict upon myself. I only sleep as punishment. Right now, I felt no desire to harm myself, but only a distinct weariness that I felt in my body. I was getting old; already I was far past the age where most men stopped courting, even an age where marriage began to lose its luster. I was much too old for her, and I knew it – she, a girl of barely eighteen, nineteen, twenty tops, would never find herself attracted to this slowly dying man, and if she was she was much too sensible a woman to allow herself to stay with me. It would be much better for her to court a younger boy, not a lusting shadow of what something might have been.

I had found myself stricken with this revelation; pain I had not considered it before. It seemed that the fates were against what I felt in my soul and seemed to try to block my road to happiness with whatever excuse they could get. Nothing was on the side of this tired masked renegade. The phantom of the opera was becoming decrepit, and now was quietly fading away.

I stared off blankly into space, brainless, thoughtless, momentarily deceased. Maybe I was finally dead now, out of all the times I had fallen into my own stupor. It would be a welcome change from the tedious days I spent on this earth, pacing warily through abhorred souls and wallowing in detestation. Very few had ever looked upon me with kindred and benevolent glances – I had only endured the furious stares of terror, anger, a wordless pain caused by my presence. My eyes, the ones that were claimed to be dark holes filled only with a blazing flame, were nothing so horrific compared to the looks of utter loathing I had received during my excuse for a lifetime. In my mind, I was not the enemy. I had never been the enemy. The masses had taken it upon themselves to become _my _enemy.

So I began to discover that I was not immortal and that the tolls of hate had not merely been deflected as I had originally thought.

Nothing reflected in my mind. Nothing. I heard nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing.

Until I felt something on my face.

It was my mask, or a part of it; it felt as though it had been removed from my head. I felt two light touches against the side of my cheek, and then an entire side of my mask was no longer attached to my face.

_Someone was taking off my mask!_

Instantly I snapped out of my daze and jumped up from the chair upon which I had been lying. The sharp glare of the dim room burned at my eyes as I blinked furiously, groping at my exposed face and floundering in my confusion. A surge of rage fueled my burst as the sound of shattering glass met my ears and brought me the realization that my mask had been destroyed. This riled me even more, and as my thin pale limbs swung wildly and finally struck what felt like warm flesh.

I stopped hitting and slowed enough to see who my tormenter was. Instantly my heart sunk down from my chest and seemed to break as badly as my mask.

There was a head in front of me, a soft face with light skin as white as the innermost part of the flame on a candle, apart from a flushed redness to one cheek that appeared to be a wound. The face's lips looked as gentle as velvet, plump like a crimson pillow, and the eyes were round and dark with a wet sheen. There was not only a head in front of me, I realized, as my eyes wandered and caught sight of cascading russet locks that wove around on shapely bare shoulders and a pale torso that was partially covered just below the beginning of a chest by an midnight silk gown. There was a body in front of me, a person whom I had unwillingly hoped I would never see again.

"You're back." Was all I could manage, as my body was trembling, my fury and hatred slowly ceasing to exist? The familiar weariness that I had been previously experiencing began to crawl back through my bones, and now my broken masked seemed like no important matter. Nothing mattered. She was standing here before me, willingly.

"I am." Christine said in a soft, emotionless voice. I could feel her eyes on my body, scanning me slowly as I was scanning her.

"Why?" My voice still had a quiver to it, but had become the mellow monotone she spoke with. Christine did not answer, but instead looked at my face without even a sign of discomfort with my strange appearance.

Then it struck me – I was dreaming!

I had not faded off and died, as I had so hoped. I had fallen asleep, the torment that I feared, the nightmares! I was dreaming that she was here with me, wanting to be with me, and soon she would vanish, leaving me to lust horribly again with a fresh sear of pain. Damn this unconscious state of mine!

Furiously I turned my back to the girl standing behind me, and violently flung myself into my chair, weeping freely. I heard a faint motion behind me and the same fingers that had pried my mask away pressed themselves against my back gently. The dainty hand seemed to move up my body to my face – _she was touching my face! – _and slowly caressed it. It was the first time I had ever been touched kindly, and by a woman, no less! A shiver ran down my spine like lightning to a tree.

Somehow, this gave me a motion of daring and I turned around slowly. My hand had flown to the spot where she had touched my rough skin, and I felt her own hand against mine.

"What's wrong?" Christine's hand moved from under mine and went to my eyes, where tears had begun to build up from my hatred and discontent. Her finger allowed itself to wipe the tears away as if she were a mother and I her son. It was obvious that she was not really in front of me, not really touching me, but she felt so real! Her hand was warm, the soft smooth flesh that was like velvet to the touch against my rough sandpaper face.

"You aren't there, are you?" I asked in a feeble whisper, leaning awkwardly against the chair. "You're only a dream."

Once again Christine said nothing, still stroking my cheek. Once again my temper betrayed me and I lurched away from her before promptly delivering a quick slap to her face.

"Leave me in peace!" I yelped painfully, as if I had been the receiver of the blow instead. "Can you not see how you torment me? I will wake the moment you touch me and find myself in even more pain then I am now!"

Christine had recoiled at the strike, but had steadied herself in realization that I knew of her true nature. She appeared dazed and confused, but still headstrong.

"You believe me not to be standing here then? You could only imagine you wanting me, and not I wanting you as well?" The girl was shocked, almost angry.

"Christine would never want me as I feel for her. You are only a dream sent to torture me for the things I did to her! Haven't I suffered enough?" I shouted darkly. In my anger, I could not support my own weight and found myself collapsing.

The nightmare bent down and tried to stop the plunge to no avail, and instead I found her fallen on top of me. Instead of tearing herself away from me, which I found that I would have not preferred, the girl wrapped her slender arms around my neck, her mouth dangerously close to mine.

"Stop…" I begged, but my plea was half-hearted. I had fallen into her trap now, and was unable to resist what was about to happen even if I knew what was to follow after. I wanted her too much to even remind myself that this was only a dream.

"Why do you want me to stop? Isn't this what you wanted from me? Or is it not the way you planned?"

I shook my head. "If you aren't a dream, why are you doing this?" Everything was becoming more and more lifelike as every moment passed, but something in my mind kept screaming that this was impossible.

The girl sighed and leaned away from me, and I felt myself feeling terribly disappointed.

"You can't believe that I love you, can you?" Christine crossed her arms, her dress askew around her legs.

"But you left me for…"

"That doesn't matter! I'm here now, aren't I?" She seemed impatient. "Fine. Consider me a dream, if you so desire. But I'm where you wanted me."

My desire for her increased as my body began to miss the feeling of hers against it. Something was wrong, something was very wrong – she wasn't supposed to want me, for God's sakes she wasn't supposed to be forcing me on her! She seemed strange and desperate, much too eager for me compared to her feeling prior to now…

But I would already feel horribly broken when I awoke at this point. What harm would there be in going any farther? If this was already a nightmare, then it didn't matter how obscurely far my mind took me in my state.

That thought took the sullen doubt from my mind and suddenly I found myself ravenous for what she was implying. Unable to control myself or realize that I had no idea what to do with her during this sort of behavior, I found myself reaching for her desperately. Christine was much too eager to comply as she pressed her lips against mine fiercely and pushed me back down to the ground.

It was then I began to feel once again that something was terribly wrong. In all my other dreams, the ones I had inflicted upon myself as a type of self torture, I had always imagined Christine being shy, gentle, as passionate as I was but not forceful like this! This, this was violent, rough, and dare I say it – _vulgar!_ It was tasteless, loveless…she did not love me as she he claimed but instead she was only acting on lust!

My heart was breaking and I hadn't even woken up yet.

Somehow her skirts had found themselves cast aside and Christine was now only in a black lace corset that groped about her body in an unflattering fashion, giving me dark and distinct memories of the shady ladies of the night that I had been targeted by before. I was sickened at how such a distasteful garment could be on her soft body, but it seemed to fit the situation – the girl I loved was acting no more tastefully than a common whore, a random prostitute who was only with me for profit, not desire.

_This was not right!_

Once again I struggled, and this time I did so with a true feeling, but I was still exhausted and weak and the girl was considerably heavy. In my shock I could not move her off of me and could only feel hurt and disgustingly sinful lust overtake me as she led my shaking hand to the back of the bustier and slowly curved my fingers to rip it off.

As the detailed piece of clothing tore off, something in my heart seemed to lunge and I knew that the last little bit of hope I had for love from her had finally been torn out in the very same way. This was lust and nothing more.

We lay together for what was probably only several hours, but time seemed to stop and when she left me it felt as though an eternity had gone by. She was like a spreading fire, aggressive and fierce as if she was trying to force everything over with, while I feebly tried to follow along with her actions, clearly having no idea what exactly I was meant to do.

Finally, she stopped and rolled away, panting. I found myself curled up on the ground, feeling betrayed and unhappily vulnerable while she squirmed herself back into the dark gown.

"Happy now?" She breathed heavily, not turning to look at me. It was my turn not to respond and she eventually faced me.

"What's wrong? Wasn't this what you wanted?"

This was nothing I had wanted. I would have rather had her despise me then to have had to experience the passionless love that had just occurred.

"Yes." I finally answered. Anything to get her to leave me in peace

Christine nodded. She seemed somewhat pleased, although she did not smile. Without a goodbye she stepped over me and began to walk the winding stairs back up to the opera house. After another eternity, I could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps.

I was worn and shamed, and my eyes were closed once more. I knew nothing, thought nothing, felt nothing once again, only a constant pleading to escape this nightmare.

Eventually I opened my eyes, awake from a painful slumber. I was in my chair, clothed, and not sprawled on the floor shaking like I had been. A surge of relief washed over me and I breathed. For the first time, I had awoken from a dream deliriously happy to be alone in my little house. It had all been a dream. That had been nothing. That had been only a real nightmare.

But my joy was not destined to be long-lived, for when I took my first step out of my chair, I felt my foot brush against something sturdy and rough. It is impossible to describe the horror and grief that seemed to run through my blood at the moment when I looked down and saw the lacy black corset that lay askew on the cold, hard ground.

Unable to react, I fled weeping, vowing to never love again and praying that that would be the last I saw of the devious Christine.


	2. The Fog

_Part One – December 1881_

The moment the child was born everyone knew. Everyone only had to take one quick look at the infant to know Christine's secret. Even Christine herself had not been aware of her secret until the face of the babe gave it away.

The phantom had fathered a child.

Nine months…nine tedious, terrible months she spent with the little demon seed in her stomach. They had been overjoyed at the thought of their first child, the first cherubic little creature to grace what the couple hoped to be a large and happy family. Raoul had been happy, surprised a little by the news, but happy all the same that he was a father. But now the child was born, and it seemed that the man's fatherhood was not meant to be.

There was a moment of shock after labor, while the little creature lay between its mother's legs silently, staring at the crowd around her while they stared back at her. The exhausted Christine had no idea that something was deathly wrong at first, but soon enough she saw the aghast expressions on the faces of those surrounding her.

"What is it?" Panic struck the woman quickly as she bolted up from the bed, almost squashing the baby. "Is it dead? Oh god, what's happened?"

But there was no need for either her husband or the midwife to answer for her, for when Christine looked for herself upon the child she knew too.

There was an awkward silence. Then Raoul spoke.

"It's_ hideous!_" He cried with a sick pout in his voice, as if being hideous was the worst crime that ever could be committed.

In truth, the baby girl was not as revolting as she was made out to be. In fact, she was quite pretty with deep-set eyes the colour of dark chocolate truffles that were perfectly shaped. On top of her head lay a small clump of damp curls, each one as black as the coal burning in the small stove in the bedroom. The girl's skin was pale, extraordinarily pale in fact, and a few of her small veins were visible on her round childish face.

However, the right side of her face seemed scratched and worn, as if she had been burned badly. The white skin was a vigor shade of raw red around her right eye, with some parts even appearing to be charred and dead. The girl was obviously deformed, but she was not very ugly for an innocent infant.

Christine was unable to say anything as she looked at the product of her crime. Her hand had flown to her mouth, and her eyes had grown to the size of saucers. The midwife seemed to predict the rage that was slowly building up in Christine's husband, and quickly grabbed the child, snipped the link between her and her mother, and slipped off to clean the babe, sparing herself and the girl from being in the crossfire of the ugly argument that was about to occur.

"Raoul…" The woman finally stammered out, shaking furiously. "This…this isn't what it looks like…" It was exactly what it looked like, and Christine knew that damn well. But there had to be some excuse, something to help this situation.

"You said you never slept with him!" Raoul barked. He was shaking too, but with anger.

"I…I didn't do anything with him!" The singer yelped defensively. _Before I said that, anyway…_

"You didn't do anything?" Tears of disbelief were falling from her husband's eyes. "Then explain to me how exactly that…that _thing _that just came out of you was created!"

"Well, obviously it's your daughter." Christine was lying through her teeth, but Raoul wasn't thick enough to believe her.

"That thing's Erik's! You can't fool me, Christine! I thought it was strange when you told me when it would be born, I knew that you claimed it to be conceived much too early for it to be mine!"

Christine just shook her head tearfully, weeping hard now.

"So you did love him? And you went back to him. I wasn't good enough for you, was I, now?"

"I felt sorry for him!" Christine cut Raoul off darkly between her sobs. "I felt bad that he was…I don't know!"

"You felt bad for what? That he couldn't lie with you because you weren't his? That he was a virgin? What good reason did you have to do this, Christine?"

The woman coughed and whimpered under her husband's wrath.

"I…I don't know…I just wanted to give him what he wanted! I don't love him, Raoul! I love you, you know that…I never wanted this…I swear!"

The anger seemed to die in the man's heart. Only a feeling of sorrow remained in him now, and he reached forward to embrace Christine.

"I know." He kissed her head lightly as she wept. "Don't be sad, Christine…there isn't anything we can do about it now…"

Suddenly Raoul became stern again, letting her go.

"But you cannot see him again." He suddenly snapped, his loathing for Erik growing dangerously larger by the second. "You go near him again, and I swear…"

"I wont!" Christine piped up shrilly. "I never intend to again, I promise you Raoul! I never wanted to see him again!"

Raoul said nothing and instead held her patiently. Her cries were childish, loud sobs, and he felt uncomfortable around her, but he remained.

After some time, when the loud crying had died down to Christine sniveling miserably, the midwife entered again. The infant was in her arms, sleeping too peacefully for a child her age, and the nurse had her at a cautious distance.

"Monsieur…Madam…" She held out the girl slowly, looking nervous when neither of the two accepted the bundle.

"Raoul…?" Christine asked quietly, unsure exactly how to finish the question she wanted to ask him. But Raoul seemed to know.

"We can't keep her, Christine." He said quietly.

Christine turned to him, a sudden fury in her eyes.

"Raoul, you can't be serious."

The man shook his head. "You have to see, Christine, that it is impossible for us to keep his child…"

"Raoul, if you carried around a heavy child for nine months straight and then was given the suggestion to get nothing out of it, you would disagree too!" the girl snapped. Her husband gave her a stony look as a response, and Christine could see a hint of pain in his eyes. He did not like making this decision.

"What do you propose we do with it, then?" She asked bitterly, but more gently this time.

There was a painful silence as Christine, the midwife, and even the small child watched Raoul in wait of a response.

Finally, he spoke. "Christine, you will return the girl to Erik. In two week's time, when you have recovered from this event, you will go back to the lair with the child and return without her. You may write him a note, if you wish, but you will not speak a word to him, nor will you speak a word of any of this after the deed is done."

The infant seemed to close her eyes in pain after the grave statement, and the midwife fussed quietly over her, her ears still listening intently.

Softly Christine responded. "And if I come back with the child?" Her voice was sharp, almost challenging.

"Then you will have to pray that the child can swim, as she will mysteriously find herself abandoned in an unexplainable pool of water." Raoul retorted as coolly as he could manage without his voice breaking. "And you will also have to pray for someone else that will marry you and stand your adulterous ways, for I will no longer be that person."

Another silence followed as the nurse present stifled a gasp. The young child's dark, tender eyes opened once again, this time with a look of unmistakable sadness within them.

Christine had averted her eyes from her husband, and once again her beautiful face was flushed with tears.

"Fine." She snarled horribly, burrowing her face into her hands and yanking away when her husband tried to touch her. Her newborn let out a soft moan, as if expressing Christine's sorrow for her.

"It's for the best, Christine." Raoul hesitantly left his wife's side and relieved the midwife of the burden in her arms. He allowed a quick glance at the girl, allowing his eyes to meet hers for the first time.

The small child blinked at him, an apprehensive look in her eyes. She was frightened, but still there was some sort of gentleness in her expression.

Suddenly the infant reached out her chubby hand, and awkwardly grabbed the man's finger.

Raoul gasped quickly as some sort of inhumane warmth ran through his heart. Just as quickly, however, a fury rushed through his blood. So, the monster's child had taken to him? The damn creature dared to touch him, to be held casually!

Shock and anger cursed through his hands and he drew them away, sending the infant to the floor with a sickening crack. He was unable to control himself to remain and see the child's fate, and with a shaking feeling, he fled the room and barged out the door.

It was a dark night, a large blanket of black spread over all of Paris illuminated only by the candlelit streetlights. A good half of the lights had managed to get themselves doused by the heavy rain that pounded against the streets like a thousand miniature drumsticks, and there was absolutely no light at all anywhere near the winding pathways and alleys that normally were out of question for the city's aristocrats.

Yet Raoul somehow found himself charging down these roads, tears in his eyes. His thin white shirt caught itself on something sharp, but the man didn't care and let his clothing tear as he rushed off towards nothing. People were around him. They were the strange shadows of drug dealers and ladies of the night that stared at him. Every once in a while Raoul caught a glimpse of the whites of their eyes and he would panic more.

Finally the harried man found himself alone again. He was on a bridge; a strange pier over a river that he had never known existed. Of course he wouldn't know it was there – Raoul always had been limited to the "good" world, the proper world, the politically correct world of dashing young men with wealthy wives sporting massive, stately gowns and thick rows of curls that lined up like the sausages displayed in the renowned butcher's window on the fancy cobblestone street. He had known manors, maids, fine education and high class, not the damp backstreets that were contaminated with as many gangs and whores as there were rats from what he was told.

But now, even after years of splendor and wealth and orders to stay appropriate, he found himself on this bridge, as torn and broken just as any other man, rich or poor, in his situation.

And even now Christine was just like any other woman! Going off and acting like a common tramp, sleeping with the first thing that would come to her, and allowing herself to conceive a child with a _monster! _Raoul knew that she had never been taught that way, never been brought up to be a little whore – but she wasn't a wealthy girl to begin with. She wasn't from a good, prominent family; it was bad breeding was what it was…

No. It was the other aristocrats talking in his mind now, not him. Christine was no slut, he knew. She had never been a slut, just an ingenuous, naïve young creature who had every girl's desire to make a place for herself in the world. Raoul remembered with a sinking feeling all the sly and devious men who had promised the young singer fame and fortune in turn for a few favors back; it wasn't uncommon for a worthless, horny bastard to play himself up as a god-sent savior for the beautiful opera girls. He had heard tales of many a man who had Christine believe that she would finally rise, and then slept with her and skipped town before she even awoke the next morning. They had had such an effect on her that the lovely girl was even wary of Raoul, as he was a wealthy man from a well-known family like all the rest.

But of course, she trusted something that she couldn't see. Christine had trusted a voice, a single, bodiless voice, more than she had trusted a dear, estranged friend. This Erik fellow had posed as no threat whatsoever. It was perfectly normal for masked voice teachers to casually appear in dressing room mirrors, apparently, since Christine hadn't panicked or drawn away at the thought of the monster, had she? It was all right for a demon to touch her, kiss her, _love her _in all his grotesque abhorrity while a perfectly normal man was forced to endure the pain of being refused his heart's desire!

And now this! When he had thought she loved him, finally, she returned his affection by bearing a bastard child. Christine had surely taken it upon herself to bluntly tell him she'd rather be with Erik! Raoul felt as though his heart had been shredded.

What a sticky predicament to be in, he thought angrily, caught between a limbo of love and hate. The world was not the simple luxury the naïve boy had thought it to be. The devastating discovery of life's concealed complexity was messing with his mind.

"Monsieur?"

The man turned around and found himself facing a young girl shrouded in a cheap black-netted cloth that wove around her torso and chest. In the moonlight he could see a shady strip of eyeliner heavily painted on her otherwise small, innocent face. Matted dark curls wrapped tightly around her head. The girl looked only thirteen, just out of the difficult prepubescent stage of life, and still here she was looking ghastly, exhausted, and horribly emaciated.

It took Raoul a moment to realize he was in the company of a prostitute, and a horribly young one at that. Uneasily he backed away, as somehow the child had managed to strike a bit of awkward fear into his heart. Never before had he personally encountered such a…a person of questionable morals.

"Sir," It was evident that the girl did not particularly want to peddle her services; poverty and hunger were the only factors fueling the question. "I…I…"

It was obvious she was new to her profession – any other whore would have been more forceful, more demanding that Raoul buy her. A bit of pity crept into his heart for the poor creature, and he was tempted to press how many francs he had on him into her hand for free and send her on her way, but a small poisonous lust had also embedded itself in the man's mind.

"How much?" He croaked groggily, his mouth moving on its own accord.

"Ten francs." The girl spoke flawless French, but her accent was English. Raoul shakily fished in his pocket and pulled out several coins, but he hesitated. This was a young girl, after all. And, he remembered, he was married. Christine would be heart broken.

Then again, she hadn't had a conscience with her own affairs, he remembered. And this girl wasn't a monster. In face, he was doing her a favor by buying her next meal!

Raoul wasn't thinking straight, he realized. But it didn't matter anyway.

He shoved almost three times the amount she had asked for into her sweaty palms and forced her into a kiss. The whore was slightly surprised – usually she was taken back to a room or somewhere with privacy – but who was she to argue with the generous sum she had been paid?

Feeling only a little disgusted with himself for being with such a young girl, he went further. Raoul could feel all the stern lessons and morals that he had grown up with dissolving with the sweat budding on his skin.

_It serves the cheating bitch right. _He thought briefly of Christine. She'd deprived him for nine months and he hadn't been rewarded. He'd gone and found his own reward.

It was not questionable for the two to be together on a public bridge. After all, they were in the city slums, where even a once prominent, dignified man became just another scum of the earth toiling and dying in an eternal hell of sin. There was no class, no position, no backround, nothing. There was only existing, tainted, poisoned existence, and the air in every breath served as a weight to pull the miserable human creatures down further into submission.

And slowly Raoul was learning, along with the other lessons he had discovered that night, that good upbringing did not spare anyone an inevitable fall.


End file.
